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Death Penalty: Support It Or Against It

I support the death penalty because criminals deserve the ultimate punishment for their serious crimes. I believe that the death penalty should be legal in all fifty states in the US. What's your opinion on the death penalty?

Re: Death Penalty: Support It Or Against It

I know it's not something people usually have a neutral stance on, but that's where I've found myself in the past. I've only very recently started finding myself slightly opposing it, but I'm still a long way off from deciding one way or the other. So I'm eager to see where this thread goes!

Re: Death Penalty: Support It Or Against It

I'm sure some people have had the death penalty when falsely accused. The death penalty is too easy, anyway. If they did something they should suffer the time for it.

"Turn, and look in the mirror. What do you see?" Her own brown eyes stared back at her until she was nothing but a blur.

"I see you. Red lipstick spread perfectly over your lush mouth, brown eyes that hold centuries upon centuries of secrets. A face made to entice even the most celibate of men and women alike. A red dress that sways and moves with your body, making you a temptation like no other."

Re: Death Penalty: Support It Or Against It

Here is my problem with the death penalty and why I feel it is indefensible. And my objection has nothing to do with the killing of people who have done horrible things. I have a hard time sympathizing. However, it would seem to me that the death penalty would only be fair, and not morally wrong, in a perfect justice system. But, we have a far from a perfect justice system.

Just given the fact that you know innocent people will die, I wonder how can anyone morally justify the death penalty in our current system. The death penalty only works in a perfect system, where everyone is guilty and the punishment is provided fairly. That is not the case and never will be. It is indefensible and it boggles my mind, that given the numbers, people defend and advocate it's use.

Re: Death Penalty: Support It Or Against It

This tends to be my largest issue with it. There are any number of people on the planet that I won't shed a tear over the death (even in some cases, the horrific death) of. Unfortunately for my vengeful streak, our system demonstrably gets it wrong from time to time and its really difficult to make amends with the innocent who has just been executed.

"It is not simply enough to know the light…a Jedi must feel the tension between the two sides of the Force…in himself and in the universe."
―Thon

"When to the Force you truly give yourself, all you do expresses the truth of who you are,"

Yoda

Yoda told stories, and ate, and cried, and laughed: and the Padawans saw that life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

"But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

"You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

Re: Death Penalty: Support It Or Against It

Against. We don't have it in either of my countries and haven't for a long time. I'm against reinstating it.

The murder rate isn't higher in places that don't have it, so it can't be a great deterrent. As ThePaganMafia mentioned, the justice system is far from perfect, so innocent people end up on death row. And even if it were perfect, I don't think "eye-for-eye" justice is appropriate in most cases. Barring extreme cases, I don't believe that most people are beyond redemption.

Re: Death Penalty: Support It Or Against It

The points against the death penalty have all already been made.

My only concern is in those vast minority of cases of sane but entirely malicious individuals who have no regret over what they do, there is no doubt they did it, and they are just a drain on tax payer money whilst being a threat if they don't serve a life imprisonment.

Prison should be a place where dangerous people are kept until they can be rehabilitated. If they can't be rehabilitated, what's the point of storing them? And if they don't care that they are in prison, then that's not a punishment. Drowning rats can be a fitting response, sometimes.

I'm not one to ever pray for mercy
Or to wish on pennies in the fountain or the shrine
But that day you know I left my money
And I thought of you only
All that copper glowing fine

Re: Death Penalty: Support It Or Against It

Originally Posted by Briton

The points against the death penalty have all already been made.

My only concern is in those vast minority of cases of sane but entirely malicious individuals who have no regret over what they do, there is no doubt they did it, and they are just a drain on tax payer money whilst being a threat if they don't serve a life imprisonment.

Prison should be a place where dangerous people are kept until they can be rehabilitated. If they can't be rehabilitated, what's the point of storing them? And if they don't care that they are in prison, then that's not a punishment. Drowning rats can be a fitting response, sometimes.

It costs far more to execute than to house for life so it would seem execution is a larger drain on the taxpayer dollar.